Interactive games provide sensory feedback to users through various devices. While displays support the sense of sight and speakers support the sense of sound, haptic devices support the sense of touch. Haptic devices may be stand alone devices or they may be integrated into other devices such as game consoles or game controllers, e.g., joysticks and steering wheels.
In order to convey realistic sensations, haptic devices must be synchronized to the sights and sounds a user experiences during game play. Therefore, haptic devices require relatively high bandwidth, low latency, bi-directional and otherwise supportive communication protocol with the host, e.g., game console or other computer, executing a game application.
In order to improve the realism experienced using existing gaming systems, haptic devices are being adapted to existing gaming systems that have existing communication protocols. However, existing communication protocols may limit force feedback protocol and architecture for haptic devices. A trend towards wireless game controllers may further limit force feedback protocol and architecture for haptic devices. Aspects of existing communication protocols for existing gaming systems, such as header and payload definitions, frame rate, etc., contribute to limit system bandwidth and latency, which may be insufficient to deliver realistic haptic effects.